A blog devoted to the discussion of the greatest movies ever made, or The Essential Films. From the beginning of cinema history to present day, these films are crucial to the education of anyone who loves the art of film making.

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Friday, May 25, 2012

In honor of the 35th Anniversary of the release of the original Star Wars film (“A New Hope”), SuperfriendsUniverse.com is PROUD to present FORCED PERSPECTIVE, Episode 15 – May the Force Be With You, Part 1 – the first of 2 Star Wars-themed episodes. Join SportsGuy515 and Adolfo, along with special guests Big D, Mr. Eddie, and Hamza (b.k.a. Dave) as they take you back to a galaxy far, far away with almost 3 HOURS of in-depth discussion of the Original Star Wars Trilogy – “A New Hope”, “The Empire Strikes Back”, and “Return of the Jedi”. Plus, classic Star Wars video games, the Special Editions, our Star Wars memories, and MORE! A MUST-LISTEN EPISODE! DOWNLOAD/STREAM NOW!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

(Before we get started… a disclaimer. Let’s not kid ourselves… we’ve ALL seen the movies. We all have our opinions, there’s no need for in-depth reviews. I will be reviewing the actual quality of the discs: sound, video quality, special features, etc.)

Disc 1 – Episode I: The Phantom Menace

The Movie: The much maligned Episode I lives up to its reputation. 13 years later and it’s still not good… which Sportsguy515 and I discussed back in February on an episode of Forced Perspective while reviewing the 3D release. However, it’s not actually my least favorite. Attack of the Clones is clearly the worst movie in the series. Don’t get me wrong, Menace is right behind it, but at least it doesn’t overly rely on CG like Attack of the Clones does. There are real props, sets and location shots… unlike Clones. But at the very least it has one of the best lightsaber battles of the entire series and the introduction of one of the cooler characters: Darth Maul. Of course, Maul dies in the end (it’s not a spoiler, you’ve seen it)… but that won’t stop fanboys from worshipping him to Boba Fett-like levels for years to come. And then there’s Jar Jar… the movie comes to a screeching halt everytime he appears on screen.

The HD Picture: A sharp, nice picture, but I feel like it doesn’t fully utilize the HD medium. It looks better than DVD, but not by a lot. One very noticeable drawback is that the CGI characters end up looking faker than they already do. That’s not good.

The Sound: Currently, my entertainment center isn’t set-up for surround sound, etc, to fully optimize the sound capabilities of blu-ray. That said, the sound is incredible. The sound mixing, specifically in the pod racing sequence, is just a thing of beauty.

What Did They Change: They replaced the puppet Yoda from the original release to a CGI version. Not a big fan of that move, as I always prefer practical effects to CG ones.

Lucas’ commentary often comes off as justifying all his decisions… almost like he’s saying “I know you hate this, but you’re wrong and here’s why.”

Overall: They do their best to make a crappy film look good. It cleans up ok visually, and it sounds amazing, but in the end you are still left with a lackluster Star Wars movie.

Disc 2 – Attack of the Clones

The Movie: My LEAST favorite. I actively dislike this film. From the overlong and way too contrived opening chase sequence, to the AWFUL love story and the wooden acting. With the exception of the scenes on Naboo, the entire movie looks fake and synthetic. The Clone Troopers are all CGI. Adding Christopher Lee to the cast is a plus and the drastic reduction of Jar Jar are both plusses, but honestly, I didn’t need to see a tiny little Yoda jumping around doing flips. It looked ridiculous. Half of Yoda’s aura was that you always wondered how this little frog creature was able to be the most powerful Jedi master… actually SHOWING US breaks the aura and it just looks silly. This movie just plain sucks.

The HD Picture: Somehow there doesn’t seem to be ANY improvement on the picture. Maybe I’m just blind, but it doesn’t look that much better than DVD.

The Sound: Again, amazing. At least Skywalker Sound is on top of things.

What Did They Change: Nothing too noticeable. I think they added some extra screams of Annakin’s mom while he was dreaming of her.

Again, it’s amazing how much work goes into a crappy movie. More justifying from Lucas on the commentary tracks.

Overall: With the exception of the sound quality, not much “improved” on this one.

Disc 3: Revenge of the Sith

The Movie: The best of prequels, though admittedly, that’s not saying much. Thankfully only one quick shot of Jar Jar (which is enough to make it the best by default.) The story is still way too contrived, especially the action sequences. The opening “one-take” shot is really cool, but I guess it’s easy to look cool when you’re filming everything in CG. Much like Episode II, this thing uses 99.9% digital sets. Most of the movie is pretty awful, truth be told, but the last hour of the film starting at the point where Anakin finally turns to the dark side… that’s nearly perfect. All of the following are awesome well-executed moments: Anakin leading the Clone Troopers to the Jedi Temple, the execution of Order 66, Anakin killing the children, the epic Anakin VS Obi-Wan battle and Anakin’s physical transformation into Vader. Of course, all that is balanced with the crappy Emperor vs Yoda fight, Natalie Portman’s “You’re breaking my heart” line, Amidala dying of a broken heart (seriously WTF?), and awkwardly shoving Chewbacca into the movie. And of course, who could forget “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” The last shot of the movie, admittedly, is super cool.

The HD Picture: Absolutely gorgeous Hi Def picture. The opening space battle looks so crisp and sharp. It is one of the best looking films in the set from a picture quality point of view. This is what Blu-ray was made for.

The Sound: Not as good as the other prequels, surprisingly. I didn’t notice much of an upgrade from DVD sound.

Overall: The best disc of the prequels. Watch the opening space battle in the most gorgeous hi-def you’ll ever see, then fast forward to the end of the movie.

Disc 4: A New Hope

The Movie: Honestly, if you haven’t seen this movie yet, then I have nothing to say to you. I remember in 1997 when the Special Editions came out, I was so excited to see the movie on the big screen, and it didn’t disappoint. I was so happy to see Star Wars in the theaters that I was able to look past the Special Edition changes. Unfortunately I can no longer do that. Still, This is the second best movie in the saga… but if you think it’s the best, I can’t argue that.

The HD Picture: Holy crap. I didn’t know a movie this old could look THIS beautiful. Amazing transfer. The attack on the Death Star? You haven’t seen it until you see it on Blu-ray.

The Sound: The movie sounds amazing. The ships, the blasters, the lightsabers… all of it. And John Williams’ score sounds even better somehow.

What Did They Change: This is the ’97 Special Edition. So you get all that garbage. Greedo still shoots first. (Sigh.) And the terrible Jabba scene doesn’t look better in HD. I think they may have replaced an alien or two in the Cantina sequence… but more eagle-eyed viewers would be better equipped to tell me that.

The commentaries, especially the ones with archival interviews, are really informative and fascinating.

Overall: The first great disc on the set. Nearly flawless.

Disc 5: The Empire Strikes Back

The Movie: The BEST movie in the series. This movie is absolutely perfect, start to finish. It’s such an incredibly dark and dismal film, that adds depth and weight to series. Han Solo’s sacrifice and Leia’s profession of love is one of the greatest scenes in movie history, but then it gets beaten 20 minutes later… Darth Vader’s revelation to this day still sends chills down my spine.

The HD Picture: God, it looks beautiful. Everything from Hoth to Degobah to the Cloud City looks crystal clear.

The Sound: Not much to say here, other than awesome. You haven’t heard “The Imperial March” until you hear it on this blu-ray.

What Did They Change: Again, this is the ’97 Special Edition, so expect that.

Both commentary tracks are worth listening to if you are into this sort of thing.

Overall: The Best disc in the set. Hands down.

Disc 6: Return of the Jedi

The Movie: Before the prequels, this was the “worst” movie according to a lot of SW fans. I never understood this line of thinking. Yes, the teddy bears beat the Empire… that IS silly. But I get what he was going for: Even the simplest creatures can stand up to oppression. But it also has Jabba the Hut who is such an awesome memorable character (and looks much better as a puppet), a BAD ASS Luke Skywalker and an attack on the Death Star that’s almost as good as the original from Episode IV. (Almost) But most of all it has the emotional climax of Luke VS Vader. Luke has Obi Wan in one ear telling him to kill Vader and The Emperor in the other ear telling him to kill Vader, and in the end, he says “F You” to both of them and refuses to kill his father. This of course leads to the Darth Vader’s redemption, which if you don’t like… I don’t understand how you still like Star Wars.

The HD Picture: Once again, amazing transfer. The original trilogy looks so beautiful on blu-ray.

The Sound: Once again, good stuff. One thing I’ve failed to mention thus far is the sound Vader’s raspy breath. Sounds excellent.

What Did They Change: Again, Special Edition version. Of all the SE releases, this is the one they screwed with the most. They added a ridiculously over the top song in Jabba’s palace that STILL looks stupid. They completley change the ending! I mean, all the same stuff happens, but they change the original Ewok song to something less than stellar, plus add a whole bunch of scenes from around the Star Wars galaxy where the oppressed citizens are now celebrating The Emperor’s downfall. And of course they erase the original Anakin Skywalker actor in the blue ghost scene at the end and replace him with Hayden Christiansen. Fuck that change, seriously. As far as Blu-ray changes, only thing I noticed was the Ewoks now blink. I noticed immediately, but honestly, it’s not the bad. You forget they do it after a while. They also add a “No… Nooooo!” right before Vader saves Luke from the Emperor. I initially heard about this change and thought it was going to be the awful “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” from Episode III, but it’s not that bad. It’s not terribly offensive, but I liked the original better.

Overall: Once you get past the BS Special Edition changes, this is also a high quality blu-ray.

Disc 7: The Prequels Special Features

Interviews: The interviews aren’t complete interviews, but rather clips of interviews on different episodes. For example there’s a brief interview of Liam Neeson’s take on the Qui-Gon character, another interview with George Lucas on preparing to write Episode I, and another one with Ewan MacGregor’s connection to Star Wars (his uncle played Wedge in the original Trilogy.)

Deleted/Extended Scenes: Honestly, all of this stuff is skippable. It’s a little interesting, but nothing cool. It doesn’t make the movies any more watchable or make more sense.

The Collection: This is actually really cool. They’ll show preproduction and production models of things like costumes, sets, ships, creatures, props, etc. and then have the production talk about how they came to be, how they were designed, how they were used in the movie. It’s the best feature of the special features and really goes to show that even though the movies sucked… from a PRODUCTION aspect, a lot of people worked their asses off. It’s not their fault the writing and directing were so poor.

Deleted/Extra Scenes: There are a lot of sweet scenes that have never been seen before. There’s a scene at Tosche Station, an extension of Han & Leia kissing on the Falcon and a shot of Jedi Knight Skywalker building his lightsaber. Tons of geek material here.

The Collection: Same as The Collection from the prequel disc, but this time with original trilogy stuff (obviously). It’s really impressive to learn from the model makers, SFX artists and production designers how the movies we loved as a kid all came together in the planning stages.

Concept Art Gallery: Tons of Ralph MacQuarrie stuff, which if you’re into (like I am) is beautiful to look at.

Overall, this special features disc is better than the Prequels one. Big shocker.

Disc 9: The Star Wars Documentaries

The Making of Star Wars (1977): This is an ULTRA cheesy TV special from the 70s. It’s honestly hard to sit through and doesn’t give you much information you don’t already know. Hosted by C3PO

The Empire Strikes Back: SPFX (1980): Another TV special, this time released around the time Empire hit theaters. Interesting as a time capsule. Hosted by Mark Hamill

Classic Creatures: Return of the Jedi (1983): A TV Special from 1983 that looks at some of the production going into Jedi. Hosted by Carrie Fischer and Billy Dee Williams.

Anatomy of a Dewback (1997): A documentary on how they added Dewbacks to the Special Edition of A New Hope. That’s it…

Star Warriors (2007): A documentary on fans that dress up as Stormtroopers. It’s OK, and pretty skippable.

Star Wars Tech (2007): TV Special looking at Star Wars technology and if it would actually work by consulting scientists, engineers, etc. This one is a lot of fun.

A Conversation with the Masters: THe Empire Strikes Back 30 Years Later (2010): All the archival interviews from the Empire commentary track is included here in a 25 minute documentary. IF you listened to the commentary track you can skip this and vice versa.

Star Wars Spoofs (2011): This makes the whole disc. From Weird Al’s “The Saga Begins” to the Family Guy Star Wars specials… it’s 90 minutes of editing together practically every Star Wars reference from Film and Television. Spaceballs, That 70’s Show, How I Met Your Mother, Clerks, Robot Chicken… it’s all in here. This one is awesome.

What’s Missing from the 9-Disc Set:

As you could probably guess, Lucas neglected to include a lot of stuff from previous DVD releases. Such as:

“The Beginning: Making Episode I” – The hour-long documentary on the original DVD of Phantom Menace that was much more engaging than the film itself.

The Duel of the Fates Music Video – Remember how awesome this was when it first debuted?

The Empire of Dreams – The AWESOME documentary included on a Bonus Disc when the originally trilogy was released on DVD.

The Original Theatrical Cuts – All the original trilogy movies are the Special Editions. The Theatrical Cuts are not included.

Trailers – Not a single damn one.

Final Verdict

The team at LucasFilm overall did an amazing job transferring the saga onto Blu-ray. The Hi-Def quality, ESPECIALLY on the original trilogy, is beautiful and the sound is extraordinary across the board. The commentary tracks are informative, and some of the special features are a lot of fun, especially the ones dealing with Eps. 4-6. If you’re someone that wants to have all 6 movies, then I’d recommend the set. If you only care about the original Trilogy, they do sell both trilogies as individual sets for a cheaper price. However, they don’t include all the special features. Or, you could just wait another few years until he re-releases them… AGAIN. Me? I have the blu-rays… but I also smartly held on to my DVD versions of the original theatrical cuts.

For twenty-five years we’ve been the only thing standing between Moscow and the Third World War!

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a troubling film to review. By this I do not mean to imply that it is not a good film. In fact it’s quite good. Very good. Also, very deserving of the recent Oscar nominations it has earned. The problem with this film is that the one major criticism that most critics have of the film is one that I as well echo, but I will nonetheless recommend to you fine viewers. But more on that in a minute.

We’ve been brought up in a culture where spy movies are, for lack of a better term, “cool.” James Bond, the most famous fictional spy of all time, is the height of every male fantasy combined into one slick package. He’s a bad ass. He gets all the ladies. He dresses to the nines. He gets to play with cool toys. He blows stuff up. He drives fast cars. In a word, he’s awesome. Even modern day spies like Jason Bourne or Ethan Hunt play off of this archetype. Even a parody like Austin Powers pretty much follows the exact same pattern.

What we get in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a spy movie that, well, is actually about SPIES. What a concept. Instead of running around blowing stuff up and having sex with gorgeous woman (as awesome as THAT is), this film focuses on the day-to-day life, intrigue and danger of actually spying for another country, becoming a double agent (in some cases a triple agent) and all the people that get caught in the literal and figurative cross-fire.

To describe this plot is a little troubling, and that’s where the criticism comes in. The film has so many twists and turns that most critics (including this one) had a hard time actually following the plot to the point that when the double-crossing secret agent is revealed at the end of the film, it’s almost anti-climactic. That said, as confusing as the film can be, I can’t really knock it. Let’s face it as much I love Goldfinger or The Man with The Golden Gun, those films have highly improbably plots with over-the-top supervillains, improbable action sequences and ridiculous end-of-the-world scenarios. Yes… that is all great fun, but it ends up being filed away as escapist entertainment (not that there’s anything wrong with that.) This film’s plot revolves around a covert British espionage organization trying to find a Russian mole within its ranks during the Cold War in the 1970s. Revealing any more of the plot would head into spoiler territory, so I’ll leave it at that. What results is actual spy work. Agents work to investigate the situation. Can we trust him? Whose side is he working for? Who is the mole? What information does the informant have? etc.

There’s no explosions. No gun play. No cool gadgets. No hot blondes in bikinis. Yet, the film still works and it works well… mostly because of its incredibly strong supporting cast.

There’s been a long running joke that in the last 10 years the Harry Potter films have kept every British actor employed as it seems every famous English face has appeared in that franchise. Well, now that the series has finally wrapped up, looks like Tinker Tailor has managed to keep most of them working.

Gary Oldman plays the lead character in George Smiley, perhaps the most ridiculously named spy in the history of… ever. Don’t let the name fool you though, as Smiley is decidedly bad ass. He doesn’t punch anyone or cut the wires on a bomb at the last second, but he is certainly a spy you never want to cross. Does this come as a suprise to anyone, however? Oldman is a consistently amazing actor that delivers every single time. It doesn’t matter if he’s playing Sex Pistols legend Sid Vicious, the prince of Darkness Count Dracula, Stansfield the psycho cop, Sirius Black, Commissioner Gordon or a semi-retired spy… slam dunk performance every single time.

Mark Strong shows up in a supporting role, shockingly NOT playing a villain. (NOTE: I don’t consider this a spoiler because even though everyone in this film is a suspect, it’s pretty clear early on that Strong’s character is not the mole.) Strong has played the villain in Sherlock Holmes, Green Lantern and Kick-Ass and he finally gets a mainstream role that doesn’t require pure villainy. He is understated and fascinating as a spy-in-hiding.

This is Colin Firth’s first mainstream film since winning the Oscar last year for The King’s Speech, and surprisingly this is more of a supporting performance. Firth is good as always, but his screen time is limited, which doesn’t give the audience enough time to see him stretch his acting muscles.

Tom Hardy, Toby Jones and John Hurt also pop up in supporting roles, giving the usual strong performances that we have come to expect from them at this point.

From a production standpoint, everything works. The costuming, make-up/hair and art direction seem to fit the 1970s UK atmosphere that this world is set in. The cinematography is beautiful and the film is edited at a decent enough pace.

In short, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a movie you’ll have to pay extremely close attention to, because literally everything and anything could be the clue to who the Russian mole is. It is confusing, no doubt, and you may have to watch it at least twice to catch the subtle clues and understand the ending. That said I applaud the filmmakers for not dumbing down the final product. An excellent, albeit confusing, spy thriller.

Jef Costello is the perfect hitman. A bad ass who made our Top 100 Movie Bad-Asses, Costello meticulously plans his assassinations out to every detail and he never, ever gets caught. One night, however, he’s seen by witnesses after offing a night club owner. Suddenly, the people who paid him off as well as his alibi all betray him and he’s driven into a corner trying to escape.

An unfair criticism of French films (and foreign cinema in general) is that it’s generally regarded as “art house.” I went to school to study film, so a name like Jean-Pierre Melville holds some weight over the pretentious film snob crowd. What is great about this film is that it gives both the art house audience and the entertainment-only audience a good hybrid. Yes, it’s a movie about a hitman… but it’s really quite beautifully directed.

Melville’s old school. He fought against the Nazis in World War II as part of the French Resistance. So call him a pretentious director, I dare you.

The crime films of the 40s seemed to have had quite the effect on Melville as this movie is clearly inspired by those noir classics. Pay attention. It’s a film about a hitman, but there is very little in the way of “action.” There are no gunfights and no overly-choreographed fight scenes. There is killing, violence and a chase sequence, yes, but they are there to serve the story, much like the noir films of the 40s. The film relies on 2 major things to tell the story: Melville’s camera work and Alain Delon’s acting. He barely speaks in the film, but his acting is so spot-on that you know exactly what the Jef Costello is thinking purely through body language. After all, he essentially only has 2 facial expressions the whole movie. Which works as a character device, because, after all this guy is a stone-cold killer… he wouldn’t show much expression anyway. He’s also the fastest draw on a gun that you’ll see in pretty much any film. If you don’t walk away from this film without thinking that Jef Costello is one of the greatest bad asses of all time, then there is no hope for you.

The camera work is brilliant. Melville knows exactly where to put the camera to convey intrigue, suspense, etc. The dialogue is almost non-existent, so everything is achieved mostly through camera work. That is a rare accomplishment: Minimalist filmmaking that produces a film with maximum entertainment value.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Join SportsGuy515 & Adolfo as they review some of the last major releases before the start of the 2012 Summer Movie Season, including Bully, American Reunion, Titanic 3D, The Cabin in the Woods, and The Five Year Engagement, before diving into a full-blown 2012 SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW. Plus, their DVD of the Week, Adolfo’s live Extreme Rules experience, Criterion DVDs, comic book geekiness, and MORE! DOWNLOAD/STREAM NOW!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

This Friday, Marvel's The Avengers blasts off the four-color panels and into theaters, with The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man hot on its heels. Ever since X-Men hit theaters in 2000, the superhero movie genre has enjoyed a nice resurgence. While there have been some groaners (*cough*Green Lantern*cough*), we've also enjoyed mega hits like the Spider-Man franchise and the Batman reboot. So sit back as The Essential Films counts down the Top 25 Superhero Movies of all time. Oh, and while we usually only consider theatrical releases, some straight-to-video features have made their way on to this list as well. Enjoy.

#25 - Kick-Ass (2010)

Three assholes, laying into one guy while everybody else watches? And you wanna know what's wrong with me? Yeah, I'd rather die... so bring it on!

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Screenplay: Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman based on characters created by Mark Millar & John Romita Jr.

America's champion, Superman, went down in defeat several hours ago. An exhaustive search has found no sign of him. Here at the Cape, the greatest minds in the free world, are now working on a plan to stop this monster before it reaches the coast. We cannot panic.

I knew I knew you, I knew I knew you. But you ain't you. You can't be you. We put you through the window. There ain't no coming back. This is the really real world, there ain't no coming back. We killed you dead, there ain't no coming back! There ain't no coming back! There ain't no coming back!

Now, that was rude. The first boy blunder had some manners. I suppose I'm going to have to teach you a lesson so you can better follow in his footsteps. Nah, I'm just gonna keep beating you with this crowbar.

Gotham's time has come. Like Constantinople or Rome before it the city has become a breeding ground for suffering and injustice. It is beyond saving and must be allowed to die. This is the most important function of the League of Shadows. It is one we've performed for centuries. Gotham... must be destroyed.

Remember the bad guys on the shows you used to watch on Saturday mornings? Well, these guys aren't like those guys. They won't exercise restraint because you are children. They will kill you if they get the chance. Do not give them that chance.

I believe there's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams.